


i've walked and i've crawled on six crooked highways

by theformerone



Series: the deadliest girl in the whole wide world [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anti Hyūga Clan, Canon-Typical Violence, Clan Politics, Gen, Incest Mention, girls helping girls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 15:05:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15799008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theformerone/pseuds/theformerone
Summary: The day that Hinata is allowed to meet Anko's snakes is also the day that Hinata has three broken ribs, a mild concussion, a massively dislocated shoulder, and also a punctured lung.She can't think about any of it over the roar in her ears, the pride clawing up her throat, when Sei and Rodan let her fingers grace their scales.





	i've walked and i've crawled on six crooked highways

**Author's Note:**

> direct sequel to [the deadliest girl in the whole wide world](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15759264). i'm stupidly attached to this 'verse. and now it's probably gonna be a 'verse on its own.

Hinata has had the shit kicked out of her before. It's a fairly common occurrence. Nothing to write home about, or to call the papers over. 

It's usually her father doing the kicking. Occasionally Hanabi, though Hinata was known to be able to pummel her younger sister if her kindness didn't stop her. During the Chūnin Exams, it was Neji beating her beyond bloody. Hinata had undergone training for that kind of fight, a bloody one, Hyūga versus Hyūga. Her father had blocked all sorts of tenketsu on her body, had twisted the ones around her heart up before she had even seen Neji in combat. 

Her team sometimes feels guilty about it. Shino will get all pinched around the eyes when Kiba gets too reckless (though he rarely does), and Kiba will get shouty and annoyed when Shino goes too far (though he's hardly known to). Kurenai always makes sure to get a verbal agreement from Hinata long before they engage in intense genjutsu training. It took her a while to stop cancelling the illusions when Hinata started weeping; she was a first time jounin instructor, and still a little soft around the edges.

Mitarashi-sensei is different. She doesn't pretend that she's doing this for Hinata's greater good. She makes it abundantly clear that Hinata's training is her responsibility. That she's being paid to do it. She doesn't derive any pleasure or lose any sleep over it. Hinata is a meal ticket. Or rather, she's a dango stand ticket. 

It makes a difference. 

Kiba and Shino hold back. Kurenai stops and asks about her feelings. Hanabi looks at her with eyes that are caught between admiration and calculation. Neji's gaze is hard as it ever was. And her father - Her father looks through her more than he looks at her. 

Mitarashi-sensei looks Hinata dead in the eye before she punches her in the face. She gives Hinata nothing less than her undivided attention when she kicks her in the ribs, sets katons on the fur lining of Hinata's jacket, or grabs her by the arms and throws her into the sky only to send her back down with an elbow to the gut. 

There's none of her father's disinterest. None of Hanabi's worry hidden behind her own need to please their father. No compassion or worry like from her team. Hinata has Mitarashi-sensei's undivided attention. 

Hinata's wondering if she's changing, too. Before, she only took her beatings from her father, from her sister, and from Neji with a measure of quiet. She always used to grin and bear it when it came from her team. 

But with Mitarashi-sensei, Hinata bares her teeth when they're covered with blood. She lets out battle cries. She scrapes her voice raw, drawing up enough of the fight left in her to screech when she throws out a kick. She was told as a child that part of the power in a strike came from vocalization. That was when she didn't know how to fight silently. But with Mitarashi-sensei, Hinata finds herself scrambling back to those old lessons. 

There isn't time for quiet in a spar with Mitarashi-sensei. She hits too fast, rebounds, and hits again. She stays further ahead of the game than anyone Hinata's ever fought with before, her father included. And she doesn't stick to one style of fighting. Hers is a cobbled together number of styles intermittently laced with fire based ninjutsu that leave Hinata scrambling back and away. 

She hits Hinata until something in her snaps. It's usually her ribs.

But something deeper in Hinata comes loose, too. Something primal. Hinata's urge to stay alive in a fight is never as strong as it is than when she's fighting Mitarashi-sensei. It had been triggered in a small amount in her fight with Neji, but even then, she had known that she wouldn't die. She was still slightly more valuable than him in terms of clan politics, and all the jounin in the room knew it. 

But Mitarashi-sensei isn't worried about clan politics. Hinata's father gave her a job to do and she does it. She sends Hinata home with more injuries than she's accrued in any spar with her team or with her family. The clan doctor has his hands more full with Hinata than with anyone when her tutoring with Mitarashi-sensei begins. 

And when she goes from being a pupil to being an apprentice, it gets all the worse. 

It's like Mitarashi-sensei actually wants to rearrange Hinata's organs through physical contact. Today alone, she can feel the concussion blooming right between her eyes when she tries to pull herself up out of the ditch the impact from her fall has created. Her shoulder is so dislocated she isn't sure she should pop it back into place without a trained medic on stand by in case she makes it worse. 

She intimately knows the feeling of broken ribs, is well aware that hers have been snapped more times than she can count on one hand. When she sucks in a heaving breath, she knows she's close to having if not already dealing with a punctured lung. It's difficult through the haze of the rest of the pain. Her entire body feels like a callous, or a new bruise, still ripe to sensation. If she takes one more hit, she's going to explode. 

And yet. 

Hinata didn't know when to just stay down when it came to her fight with Neji. She knew better than to roll over and play dead with her father or with Hanabi. It was much different with her team. 

But something about the way Mitarashi-sensei just smirks at her, her dark eyes narrowed and glinting in the dusklight makes Hinata seethe. She knows she can't win this fight. She'd probably die before she landed a killing blow on Mitarashi-sensei. She was a jounin for a reason. She had been the Snake Sannin's apprentice. There were rumors that she was going to train Uchiha Sasuke privately, also, since everything that had happened after the invasion. 

And it makes Hinata _angry_. 

She has never, not ever been allowed to have anything to herself. Her friendships are scrutinized by the clan. Her diet is strictly kept by the clan. Her training regimen is overseen by the clan. Her hobbies are overseen by the clan.

She'll be a broodmare by the time she's eighteen and old enough to bare children without causing serious harm to herself; she's useless in terms of clan politics, but in terms of popping out more Hyūga young, she was more viable than her father and Hanabi at this point. 

Her marriage contract with Neji hadn't been broken off, even after his display in their spar at the Chūnin Exams. By blood he was her cousin and her sibling, and as much as it made her stomach roil, she knew she would lay with him if her clan demanded it. _Because_ her clan demanded it. 

She wouldn't be able to pick her marriage partner. She wouldn't be able to raise her own children because she was seen as so inferior. 

Her own godforsaken body didn't belong to herself. And now, an Uchiha, an _usurper_ of the Hyūga's renown, bearer of a hideously mutated, ugly, bastardized Byakugan, was now sniffing around the one thing that Hinata had been able to keep to herself her entire _goddamn_ life. 

And it _hurts_. It fucking hurts. So she breathes around the pain, draws back her still useful arm and forces chakra to flow through it. She's been working on her needle techniques. She has a raiton affinity and a katon, too. She's stronger with lightning than fire, and that's something Mitarashi-sensei's been trying to break her of. 

Lightning strikes when it wants to, and now is no exception. Hinata isn't thinking of fine control. She's thinking of her rage. She lets that fuel the shoddy technique. She's only ever done this with suiton before, but she can't make herself _care_. 

She fires the lightning through her fingertips, forcing it through her body and out in a blue-white arc towards her teacher. And as the lightning pours through and out of her body, Hinata _screams_. 

It surprises her, how good it feels. 

The feeling doesn't last long. Exhaustion is coming along fast and her chakra is getting low. She's got solid control, but most of what she's got left is being used to keep her on her feet. It won't last long. 

Her vision goes hazy and she starts seeing double. The lightning spears into nowhere, and Hinata knows her strike didn't connect. But there's no Mitarashi-sensei behind it. No nothing, no nobody. 

She falls to her knees and the impact jars a low whimper from her throat. She opens her mouth to say that she yields the fight, but she can't talk and use her good arm to help her down to the ground at the same time. 

Then, there is something cold brushing against her wounded arm. Hinata lets out a soft sound, flinching away, but the cold thing moves forward. It ignores her pained murmurs. 

"I like her," a smooth, low voice says. "She'd do well at the cave."

"Being suicidal doesn't make someone a candidate for being a sage," a second voice murmurs. 

The first voice chuckles and Hinata feels a long body wrap itself around her dislocated arm, holding it firmly in place. 

"Doesn't it, though?"

* * *

She wakes up in an unfamiliar apartment in an unfamiliar bed. Her head is throbbing madly, but her shoulder is back where it's supposed to be, and she can feel that her ribs have been set. That any puncture in her lung has been mended. 

Hinata narrows her eyes and slowly tries to push herself up. 

"I wouldn't, if I were you."

She lets out a yelp. It comes out hoarse. There's a snake under her hand. A massive one, at that, with a long tawny body that Hinata can't see the end of. 

"Oh goody, she's awake," says another voice, and Hinata has to turn her head to see another snake on her opposite side. 

"I'm Sei," the snake by her formerly wounded arm hisses. 

"I'm Rodan," the other says. 

They're twins. Almost identical save for some distinctive purple markings around their eyes. Sei has three triangles that point up; Rodan has three that point down. Hinata is feeling fairly dizzy. 

"You're in Dumpling's den, hatchling," Sei murmurs, her voice quiet as the turning pages of a book. "She brought you back here after you tried to kill yourself to kill her."

Hinata shakes her head slowly. 

"I wasn't - ,"

"None of us care if you were trying to die or not," Rodan says, his tongue flicking out as he speaks. "What matters is that you did it."

"You've proved your worth as an apprentice," Sei whispers. 

"And now you're ready to meet your teacher's summons," Rodan finishes.

Hinata swallows thickly, then nods. She isn't quite sure why exactly doing something as foolish as she had done had impressed Mitarashi-sensei, but she was glad of it. 

"There must be a bloodletting," Sei explains. 

"Do you intend to contract with the snakes of Ryūchi Cave?" Rodan asks. 

"Yes."

She doesn't think about it. She really ought to. Summoning contracts were lifetime commitments. It's the kind of thing she absolutely has to bring up to her elders, to her father before she makes the decision. 

The Hyūga typically summoned hawks. Or falcons. War birds of all kinds. None of her family had ever summoned snakes. Not ever. 

She will be the first, and the only. 

"Give us your wrists," the twins say in unison, and Hinata offers them. When they bite her, she only closes her eyes. It is one more little pain on top of several others. She hardly feels it. 

"When you're stronger than you are now, they'll give you their venom."

Her teacher's voice makes her open her eyes. The twin summons retract their fangs from Hinata's wrists and lap the blood from the shallow wounds. 

"You'll need to take the venom of all my summons," Mitarashi-sensei explains quietly, "before Manda so much as looks at you, much less takes you seriously in a fight. You'll need to survive their poisons before _any of them_ so much as look at you. You'll need to be immune to all kinds of venom to survive what we're going up against. And the venom will bind your summons to you, the way your blood binds you to them."

She has a tray in hand with light fare on it. A sliced apple, some crackers. There's a full canteen of water that calls Hinata's name. She's picking it up and drinking it before Mitarashi-sensei can even set the whole tray down on her lap. 

Her teacher puts a hand on her hip, something like a little smirk on her face while she watches Hinata drink. 

"Though you don't seem the type to like the bigger guys," she says. "You'd probably like Sei and Rodan's siblings. Their clutch doesn't get much larger than a grown man."

Hinata nods, though much of it doesn't mean anything to her. She finishes the bottle of water, and ignores the awkwardly full feeling in her stomach. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. 

"For the first time today," Mitarashi-sensei says, folding her arms across her chest, "you fought to kill."

Hinata blinks. 

"Sei and Rodan's mother, and the strongest of my summons, Kiyohime was watching our match today," she continues. "When you threw that lightning out, she decided it was time to sincerely offer you a contract."

Hinata nods slowly, trying to take in the information. She hadn't been aware that summons could have families to this extent. Sure, the war birds of the Hyūga were born of mothers and fathers, but she didn't know much about their family structures. 

The snakes seemed terribly close knit. Matriarchal, too. Led by powerful mothers, if they were the ones who got to decide who was allowed to pursue contracts. It makes Hinata wonder about Orochimaru, and which of his snakes saw something in Mitarashi-sensei. 

"Snakes bite to kill," Mitarashi-sensei explains. "They do warning postures, sure, but when they bite? It's to take a life. But only in self-defense."

Hinata sincerely never would have been able to guess that. 

"You need to understand that," Mitarashi-sensei says. Her eyes soften, impossibly. Hinata is unmoored. She's never seen this side of her teacher, and she doesn't know what to do with it. "If you want this contract, you have to understand that."

To fight only in self-defense. To not seek out combat, but to use her strength and the strength of the summons to protect herself. To protect others. 

Hinata had never pursued strength for strength's sake. Had never wanted power for the sake of it. All her life, she had only gotten stronger to protect herself from her clan. From her father. From her sister. Her cousin. More than from foreign shinobi or those that would want her dead, Hinata had gotten stronger to keep herself safe from her own family. 

"When y-you contracted with the snakes, M-Mitarashi-sensei," she begins, voice just as quiet as her teacher's, "who w-were you t-trying to p-p-protect yourself from?"

She looks up at Mitarashi-sensei through her bangs and watches as Anko's sad expression grows only a little stormy. 

"From my teacher."

Her words are clipped, but not mean. Honest. 

Hinata looks down at Sei and Rodan, who are still coiled up near her arms. They don't so much as twitch under her assessing gaze. She wonders when along the way Mitarashi-sensei realized Orochimaru was dangerous. When along the way, he hurt her so bad that she decided she needed a summons to help her keep herself safe. 

These small snakes were so little like the massive ones that had demolished the village. That had hurt Konoha shinobi in the Forest of Death. Hinata wonders about that, too. How much had Orochimaru's actions damaged relationships between his summons? If this Manda snake was the boss and Mitarashi-sensei was more concerned about Kiyohime liking Hinata, were there warring factions in the snake clans?

With hesitant fingers, Hinata gently places a hand on either snake. Rodan hisses at her, but Sei makes no sound. Their bodies aren't as cold as she thought they were before. A little cooler than her own internal temperature, but not cold. Not by a long shot. 

When she says it, she says it in a hoarse little whisper. Her voice doesn't waver. 

"I understand."

Mitarashi-sensei sighs. Then, from every corner of the small bedroom, Hinata hears the sound of moving bodies. There are snakes all over the floor, curling over and around each other, sliding up onto the bed where Hinata is resting. There are fifteen, by some odd guess. All of them in different shapes and sizes. Some as big as Hinata herself, and others as thin and small as Hanabi's arms. 

Behind Mitarashi-sensei, the largest of the snakes lifts its head. Hinata knows immediately that this must be Kiyohime. Shinobi didn't let the weak guard their backs, and Kiyohime clearly was the strongest. 

She's a startling red, with an orange and gold belly, odd diamond designs fluttering along the massive expanse of her body. She's beautiful. She's the matriarch of this clan, mother of every snake in the room. And she thinks Hinata is worthy. 

Mitarashi-sensei reaches out and puts a surprisingly gentle hand on Hinata's shoulder. 

"No venom," she says. "I promise."

Hinata nods. 

"Okay."

"Are you ready?"

As one, the snakes open their mouths. Mitarashi-sensei uses her free hand to lift the tray of food off Hinata's lap and deposit on the floor. Then, she drags the blanket on Hinata's legs off the bed. It exposes her legs, still in her battered sparring pants and the tender skin on her calves and ankles. 

Hinata takes in a slow breath. 

"I'm r-ready."

Mitarashi-sensei smiles. It's genuine. Hinata smiles back, feeling just as afraid as she is giddy. 

"Good," she replies. "This won't be pleasant."

Hinata huffs out a little laugh. 

"Th-that doesn't surprise m-me."

Mitarashi-sensei laughs, too, and her grip on the back of Hinata's neck gets stiffer. Her fingernails dip into the tender skin there and draw blood. Hinata sucks in a gasp, but she supposes that this makes sense, too. If the summons must bite her, her teacher must as well. 

"And kid?" Mitarashi-sensei says. Hinata can hear the grin in her voice. "Call me Anko-sensei from now on."

Hinata's joy buoys her, even as fifteen pairs of fangs dive for her exposed skin. It hurts, but the hurt belongs to _her_. And now, she belongs somewhere she wants to be. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> sei and rodan are named after other kaiju in japanese monster movies (like manda was) and kiyohime is the name of a teahouse waitress who turned into a dragon to kill a man because he spurned her.
> 
> kishi doesn't know when anko got her snake summons, so i decided for him.


End file.
